Post subject: Re: Where to get installation hardware for SSD to desktop co

Posted: Mon Jul 02, 2012 10:12 pm

Joined: Fri Aug 05, 2005 3:29 amPosts: 1587Location: UK

The SSD Upgrade Kit from OCZ is probably the most comprehensive kit available, allowing for both internal and external fitting.

It consists of

2.5" to 3.5" Adapter Bracket

2.5" External Drive Enclosure

Acronis ®True Image HD Software CD (Windows)

Mounting Screws

SATA III 6Gbp/s Data Cable

USB 2.0 Cable

In the UK my local hardware dealer is charging around £15 for it which seems a reasonable price. In the US should be around $20. Not sure about Acronis True Image, there are alternatives such as the free to download Clonezilla.

Post subject: Re: Where to get installation hardware for SSD to desktop co

Posted: Tue Jul 03, 2012 7:24 am

Joined: Thu Nov 19, 2009 10:20 amPosts: 571Location: Ottawa

Depending on the case and the spacing of the mounting holes you may be able to simply screw the drive into the side of the 3.5" or 5.25" bays. The other side would hang but SSDs are so light it wouldn't hurt anything.

SSD drives are getting much cheaper these days. I bought a 512GB Crucial M4, a bit slower than the best right now for write speed, but still over 200MB/S for under $400, imported from the USAnd smaller 240-256GB drives can be had for closer to $200!

here is the bracket I bought here - there should something similar in your areaThe SSD drives actually hold the 2 pieces of metal together and fits into a 5.25 inch bay

Post subject: Re: Where to get installation hardware for SSD to desktop co

Posted: Wed Jul 11, 2012 12:20 pm

Joined: Tue Sep 01, 2009 12:19 pmPosts: 47Location: Wisconsin

The picture of the FT02 *is* right side up then?

I wondered if I was looking at it correctly.

Where is the solid state drive best used? CAD and audio video editing?I don't know exactly how audio is processed by an editor but I do some of that. What I don't know is: is everything loaded into memory or would the SSD make the job go faster? This is confusing. These days everybody has plenty memory.

Right now I'm still price watching on the SSDs. For my civilian uses the price is yet out of range. I guess they are popular in the military from background reading I did.

Post subject: Re: Where to get installation hardware for SSD to desktop co

Posted: Wed Jul 11, 2012 3:20 pm

Joined: Thu Jul 10, 2003 11:58 pmPosts: 303Location: Australia

loninappleton wrote:

The picture of the FT02 *is* right side up then?

I wondered if I was looking at it correctly.

Where is the solid state drive best used? CAD and audio video editing?I don't know exactly how audio is processed by an editor but I do some of that. What I don't know is: is everything loaded into memory or would the SSD make the job go faster? This is confusing. These days everybody has plenty memory.

Right now I'm still price watching on the SSDs. For my civilian uses the price is yet out of range. I guess they are popular in the military from background reading I did.

SSD is best for the OS drive - the fact you can load 10 things at once and still get at least 100mb/s means once Windows shows the deskstop, icons and all startup program load within a few seconds vs 2 mins with a normal HD on my computer! All those OS drive reads/writes Windows does no longer effects your perfomance. Plus I now put my fixed size virtual memory and Temp folder back on my system SSD drive because of this.I can now do a NOD32 and MBAM scan on my system drive at the same time in under 8 mins - 120GB - without stalling the access to drive, while I do other stuff.Backups of my Intel 520 SSD OS drive with Shadow Protect (fastest software for this) are done in 8-10 mins as well, depending which drive I save it to, 350mb/s to my Crucial M4 SSD, or 200-250mb/sec to my Seagate 3TB HD, down from 30+ mins.

Even the slowest and cheapest SSD with have this lighting fast access time under 1ms and be able to load/write 10 things at once!

Audio editing is usally read off the HD or streamed. But unless your working on many files together, it's not too bad, but it will be faster when processing and rendering audio files.Video editing benefits a lot from SSD - which you will need if your recording uncompressed HD video files.My 2nd SSD houses all my music software and large streaming sample libraries, some are like 70GB large. They load and scan in a few seconds now, as opposed to 30secs to a minute plus. 500Gb/sec with SATA3 port and ACHI mode on does that

Well worth an SSD for the OS drive - life is too short to suffer to save a few $$$$ I was truly shocked at the speed difference the first time Windows loaded!I've saved much frustration when constantly rebooting to trouble shoot, and restoring backups. Doing a clean install of Windows 7 SP1 off DVD takes less than 15-20mins!

Post subject: Re: Where to get installation hardware for SSD to desktop co

Posted: Wed Jul 11, 2012 6:17 pm

Joined: Thu Jul 10, 2003 11:58 pmPosts: 303Location: Australia

I spend 8 hours a day on my PC at least, so I can tell you SSD for the OS drive has been the single best improvement in user experience out of all the upgrades I've done over the years!

I have more drives that are only turned on for backing/cloning too - 240GB Intel 520 SSD for OS, 512GB Crucial M4 SSD for audio stuff, 3TB Seagate for the rest of my junk, and a Samsung 1TB for OS clined to one partition, and the rest for backup. 2TB Samsung external disk and an old 1Tb Samsung on a HD dock via ESATA - both for backup purposes - these are my old system drives, that are now retired to backup duties - pretty slow. I also have a bunch of smaller drives that are retired or used to backup my PS3

160GB? How full? If it's less than 75% full then you really should get an SSD and replace it, then use that drive for backup duties.A 160-256GB SSD can be had for not much now

Post subject: Re: Where to get installation hardware for SSD to desktop co

Posted: Wed Jul 11, 2012 7:10 pm

Joined: Tue Sep 01, 2009 12:19 pmPosts: 47Location: Wisconsin

CoolColJ wrote:

I spend 8 hours a day on my PC at least, so I can tell you SSD for the OS drive has been the single best improvement in user experience out of all the upgrades I've done over the years!

I have more drives that are only turned on for backing/cloning too - 240GB Intel 520 SSD for OS, 512GB Crucial M4 SSD for audio stuff, 3TB Seagate for the rest of my junk, and a Samsung 1TB for OS clined to one partition, and the rest for backup. 2TB Samsung external disk and an old 1Tb Samsung on a HD dock via ESATA - both for backup purposes - these are my old system drives, that are now retired to backup duties - pretty slow. I also have a bunch of smaller drives that are retired or used to backup my PS3

160GB? How full? If it's less than 75% full then you really should get an SSD and replace it, then use that drive for backup duties.A 160-256GB SSD can be had for not much now

Well as old hackers like us know the price of things like memory or thumb drives can get so cheap they could put them in Cracker Jack boxes like toys. But the day will come when getting one cannot be resisted. Meantime: stay away from static and audio speakers.

Post subject: Re: Where to get installation hardware for SSD to desktop co

Posted: Wed Jul 11, 2012 7:40 pm

Joined: Thu Jul 10, 2003 11:58 pmPosts: 303Location: Australia

Yes if you wait long enough, things will be cheaper, bigger and faster, but how long will you wait and when will you "get on the train"?You could die next week and never experience all of that

And by the time you get what is cheap, it's probably too slow and small compared to everything else It maybe faster and bigger than what you had before, but it's still slow and small in the scheme of things

Post subject: Re: Where to get installation hardware for SSD to desktop co

Posted: Wed Jul 11, 2012 8:14 pm

Joined: Tue Sep 01, 2009 12:19 pmPosts: 47Location: Wisconsin

CoolColJ wrote:

Yes if you wait long enough, things will be cheaper, bigger and faster, but how long will you wait and when will you "get on the train"?You could die next week and never experience all of that

And by the time you get what is cheap, it's probably too slow and small compared to everything else It maybe faster and bigger than what you had before, but it's still slow and small in the scheme of things

I used to work as a retail computer salesman. When selling software you can always tell the fence sitters that all that time you are wasting waiting for the price to go down, your learning curve is getting steeper.'

It's a good sales point. But it hardly applies to hardware which has no learning curve. I've been getting my 160 SATA HDs off of Ebay sales for $15.00. And while, as you say, I might be using a cane by the time that price comes I'm not actually suffering without one. I might be using a cane any day now in any case being 64 and on disability fixed income. No tears to shed. And I get by. I just don't have the impulse to buy things as a compulsion which is sort of what you are getting at:instant gratification.

Post subject: Re: Where to get installation hardware for SSD to desktop co

Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2012 9:47 am

Joined: Thu Jul 03, 2008 4:27 amPosts: 1748Location: Switzerland

I bet you won't have to wait long to see cheap SSDs on the used market. Only they will be low-capacity SSDs. But if you know what you're doing, you don't need more than that.

SSDs are great but some RAM and some skill at configuration will go a long way. You can live without SSDs just fine.As an illustration:

CoolColJ wrote:

Backups of my Intel 520 SSD OS drive with Shadow Protect (fastest software for this) are done in 8-10 mins as well, depending which drive I save it to, 350mb/s to my Crucial M4 SSD, or 200-250mb/sec to my Seagate 3TB HD, down from 30+ mins.

I did backups faster from my laptop hard drive over USB2 8 years ago. Before that, I had USB1 which was quite slow.The reason I was able to backup so fast is that I wasn't using the "fastest software". I was using free software, configured so that it wouldn't take so long. Don't trust what sales people tell you about proprietary software!

I also don't scan. So it takes 0 seconds on my hard drive. I also rarely reboot or shutdown because I don't have to troubleshoot and thanks to the standy or hibernation features.

Post subject: Re: Where to get installation hardware for SSD to desktop co

Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2012 10:21 am

Joined: Tue Sep 01, 2009 12:19 pmPosts: 47Location: Wisconsin

If the main feature of these SS hardwares are OS loading, how long will it be before a thumb drive has the capacity for WinXP? And then how to get that to work? An advanced utility package such as Hirens has 'miniWindows' on it's current dvd release. And there's a process to load it from the thumb drive which I use when cloning a backup.

So yes, as smaller SSDs become available in the aftermarket they can be used without trying to keep all the media and so on in one storage device.

Post subject: Re: Where to get installation hardware for SSD to desktop co

Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2012 10:31 am

Joined: Thu Jul 03, 2008 4:27 amPosts: 1748Location: Switzerland

The main feature of SSDs is not OS loading, it's only that it's the most obvious improvement for the average user. That's because the average user isn't doing much with their computer. But depending on what you do with your computer, the difference is well worth the extra cost...

The average thumb drive and the average SSD differ in more fundamental ways than the interface. I wouldn't recommend running a desktop OS from one.

XP will be obsolete soon anyway.

There's a version of 8 which is supposed to work from thumb drives. But last I heard it won't be available for retail customers.The best way to run Windows from a thumb drive has long been to run a non-silly operating system from the drive and Windows in a VM. For the average law-abiding user, it's likely to remain thus. Then again the average law-abiding user has little interest in running Windows from a thumb drive...

Post subject: Re: Where to get installation hardware for SSD to desktop co

Posted: Thu Jul 12, 2012 10:54 am

Joined: Thu Jul 10, 2003 11:58 pmPosts: 303Location: Australia

HFat wrote:

I bet you won't have to wait long to see cheap SSDs on the used market. Only they will be low-capacity SSDs. But if you know what you're doing, you don't need more than that.

SSDs are great but some RAM and some skill at configuration will go a long way. You can live without SSDs just fine.As an illustration:

CoolColJ wrote:

Backups of my Intel 520 SSD OS drive with Shadow Protect (fastest software for this) are done in 8-10 mins as well, depending which drive I save it to, 350mb/s to my Crucial M4 SSD, or 200-250mb/sec to my Seagate 3TB HD, down from 30+ mins.

I did backups faster from my laptop hard drive over USB2 8 years ago. Before that, I had USB1 which was quite slow.The reason I was able to backup so fast is that I wasn't using the "fastest software". I was using free software, configured so that it wouldn't take so long. Don't trust what sales people tell you about proprietary software!

I also don't scan. So it takes 0 seconds on my hard drive. I also rarely reboot or shutdown because I don't have to troubleshoot and thanks to the standy or hibernation features.

I doubt your OS drive was also 120-130GB.....This combo was going at over 300MB a second to achieve the 6-8min backup time with medium compression on an i7 3930k at 4.4 ghz down to 60-70GB!If your going under 100 MB/S I fail to see how anyone can do a complete 1:1 clone of a 120GB OS drive in the same time, even reading at that speed, without compression and writing to another disk, would take 3 times longer.

Shadow Protect is extremely robust and can do hardware independant restores, which can save a lot of headache TBH, if your shuffling between different drives, MBR/GPT, IDE/AHCI modes and OS a lot like I do

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